Nessie Caught On Webcam?

Updated on November 12, 2009

Magnification of the last frame

1st frame

2nd frame

3rd frame

Last frame

Photos of Nessie, the famous Loch Ness Monster, have always been proven to be faked. Although I've been to Loch Ness myself on more than one occasion I have never believed in any of the strange, skewed photos of a multi-humped monster with a dinosaurian neck and head swimming around the calm waters of the bonny loch.

However, these webcam captures have certainly left me shaking my head. If I hadn't seen them live myself, I would have been far more willing to dismiss them as some Photoshopped creation. But as truth is so often stranger than fiction, I actually saw this "something" sail across my screen in real time!

Over a month ago I left Canada for a while in order to work on a huge business project overseas and thus have been using a mobile USB key to connect to the internet. This device is just about as fast as my broadband landline back home, but does seem to have one frustrating failing: If it is not consistently active, it will tend to drop the line and need to be reconnected. Since when I write I like to have the net available to check facts or review information, it became quite frustrating to keep having to connect over and over again.

Telecoms being what they are, it took some digging to figure out that the USB key was timing out when there was no traffic being uploaded or downloaded. As long as I was actively surfing, the line would stay active. As soon as I stopped navigating, the line dropped.

Organizing my work to surf, then write, then surf was not suitable, so I thought that if I ran a stream from CBC-TV News in a window, the constant traffic would keep the line active and I could catch up on anchor Peter Mansbridge's constantly receding hairline. It didn't work. It turns out that the line likes to stay active with page loads every few seconds. That solved my problem as all I needed to do was get a webcam in a window that refreshed every few seconds, and I'd be set!

Sure enough, having a browser window with a webcam on a 15 second refresh cycle did the job, and it gave me the extra added benefit of being able to distract myself for a bit watching students mill around a Florida university fountain, or rusty Citroens zoom around French streets. Earlier today I had clicked on the Loch Ness webcam just for the heck of it, and left it on while I merrily worked away.

How I could ever have guessed while I was writing my previous Hub that out of the corner of my eye I would see a wake streaming across Loch Ness which sure as heck didn't look like a boat! I stared at it for a couple of refreshes and as it came closer to the camera, I was clearly seeing a "something" that sure as heck wasn't a boat, unless it was a motor powered Viking ship with a huge dragon head for a prow!

On the third frame I was viewing, I decided that this merited further analysis so I started hitting Print Screen. I was able to capture four screens over the next 60 seconds before the "something" moved out of the frame.

Professionals can do the photo analysis, as I am not even going to begin to attempt to determine what this "something" is or isn't. All I can say is that magnifying on the image it looks like the figure is not steady in shape as would be expected of a boat. It seems to contract and "hump up" and then stretch out, and the position of the head seems to change as if it is looking side to side. Keep in mind that this camera was set at a 15 second refresh, and I had no way of changing the frequency, resolution, camera angle or anything else as I am very far away from Scotland!

Perhaps it's some sort of lake fishing boat with an overhanging crane in the front. Or it's a yacht with a dinghy hanging out the front. I'm trying desperately to come up with some sort of answer as the one that it's the mystical Loch Ness Monster is just not acceptable to my scientifically trained mind.

Even though I've been staring at these photos at maximum magnification for a couple of hours now, I still can't come up with definitive evidence that it is or it isn't something alive.

Despite my own inability to conclusively determine the nature of this "something" I wanted to place these images up for my readers to take a crack at. Perhaps some photographic analysis expert will be able to analyze the images and conclude that it is whatever it is. I have loaded these images so that clicking on them brings them up at full size, or as full as I have. This is all the resolution I was able to get off the screenshots, so I can't help anyone with deriving more picture information than there is here. Unfortunately everything that is available to be seen as pertains these photographs is right here in this Hub, so I hope that someone can make "heads or tails" of it!

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Comments 32 comments

I don't know if its Nessie or not..but I do know your Hub was a great and fun read...Thanks again for your excellent contributions to HubPages...Larry

Hal Licino 7 years ago from Toronto Author

Hi Maven, my friend. How have you been? Thanks for the kind words, now read the Hub VERY CAREFULLY... especially the first letter of each paragraph! :)

maven101 7 years ago from Northern Arizona

LOL...Love it..!!!

Hal Licino 7 years ago from Toronto Author

The reason for it is the last paragraph in the "other" Hub you've just commented on! (wink wink)

fortunerep 7 years ago from North Carolina

hal,

this picture could be worth something, photo shopped or photos hopped

that is acrostic Hal, cool

dori

Hal Licino 7 years ago from Toronto Author

Hi Dori. Well, Ichthys is a fish so maybe there is a natural correlation... :)

The Rope 7 years ago

Fun read - thanks!

Hal Licino 7 years ago from Toronto Author

You're very welcome! :)

wandererh 7 years ago from Singapore

Haha...you had me for a moment. :)

Hal Licino 7 years ago from Toronto Author

So it was an... ALMOST GOTCHA? :)

wandererh 7 years ago from Singapore

Okay, the first letters helped.....a lot. ;)

Hal Licino 7 years ago from Toronto Author

Ya, well, I didn't want anyone to say that ol' Uncle Hal was out and out lyin'! :)

RGraf 7 years ago from Wisconsin

Boy! Am I glad I read the comments. Good one! Thanks for the laugh this morning.

Hal Licino 7 years ago from Toronto Author

Ever since I was freezing my butt off at Urquart Castle early one morning when the loch was "quiet as a mill pond" and saw nothing but my glasses fog up, I've often wondered how much fun it would be to get a dinghy with an inflatable dragon snake cover and motor around all day. I'll bet you it would make CNN the next morning! :)

HEY! I have a BETTER IDEA! I'll say my son is stuck in the dragon dinghy and his life is in danger! That will get coverage! I'll be RICH!

Er...

I guess that's been done already! :)

quicksand 7 years ago

I would never have guessed if you had not responded to Maven101!

Hal Licino 7 years ago from Toronto Author

Hal pulls the wool over quicksand's eyes! Film at 11! :) You now have my permission to genuflect to the Photoshop King. :) Actually, it was very easy. the boat that was trawling across the loch was a triangular blob in high magnification, so just a simple triple duplication with some judicious erasing to make the neck and there you have it... INSTANT NESSIE! :)

Shalini Kagal 7 years ago from India

haha - how Hal is that??? Only you, Hal, only you :D

And here was I thinking - why do all these magic moments happen only to you??

Is you email box full? my mail came back, saying it couldn't be delivered!

Hal Licino 7 years ago from Toronto Author

These magic moments happen to me because I am truly blessed. Blessed to know people like you, blessed to have a great gig on HubPages where I can have fun with things like this, and blessed due to my inherent magnetism to young pneumatic cheerleaders. Oh, ok... maybe the last one is a bit of a stretch.

I blocked incoming HubPages email at the time of my death threats by the idiots who believed that defending their right to sand down their CPUs with soapy water trumped their responsibility to not commit felonies.

Do you want me to email you? :)

Shalini Kagal 7 years ago from India

Hal! I was wondering when those pneumatic cheerleaders would surface! :D

I'm so sorry to hear about the threats Hal! Sometimes the virtual world can be a chilling place! Do be careful!

Yes, would like that, thanks :)

Hal Licino 7 years ago from Toronto Author

The Canadian police stepped in and squashed all that very quickly. I followed their suggestions and they all crawled back in the hole from whence they came. Too bad they took all the pneumatic cheerleaders with them! Harumph! Chicks... all they want is young, zit faced, braindead boys... why can they not appreciate the validity of old, fat, balding, hirsute, flatfooted, short, myopic perverts? It's one of the inexplicable facts of life! :(

Sending private message now! :)

quicksand 7 years ago

I guess you must be a descendant of Leonardo Da Vinci!

Sandyspider 7 years ago from Wisconsin, USA

Interesting reading this.

nicomp 7 years ago from Ohio, USA

You are the Forest Gump of cyberspace. Always in the right place at the right time. :)

Hal Licino 7 years ago from Toronto Author

quicksand: Nah. Leo couldn't figure out that he needed more horsepower in his helicopter that a single human could generate. But da dude shure could paint hisself up a primo chick! :)

Sandyspider: Thanks!

nicomp: You're too kind. Life is a box of Hubs. You never know what you're gonna get.:)

quicksand 7 years ago

Well ... then Julius Cesar?

Hal Licino 7 years ago from Toronto Author

"Et tu, Terra-celox? Et tu?" Although we can argue with Suetonius that it should have been "Tu quoque, Terra-celox, fili mi?"

quicksand 7 years ago

Me no good at history! :)

Hal Licino 7 years ago from Toronto Author

Shakespeare paraphrased Roman historian Suetonius in his retelling of the death of Julius Caesar at the hands of Brutus. The former is the phrase Shakespeare wrote, but the latter is the one Suetonius stated that he had understood Caesar to say from second hand reports... however, the Roman writer's own opinion was that Julius said nothing... except maybe... GGAAAAACCCCCKKKkkkkkkkkkk... or... Can I get an extra large Orange Julius to go? :)

quicksand 7 years ago

Ah! Now I understand. Thanks! :) ------ :) (wide grin)

Hal Licino 7 years ago from Toronto Author

My pleasure! Stay sane! I've failed, but I believe in you and I'm sure you can do it if you try! :)